


Bearing Gifts

by fengirl88



Series: Trouble With Harry [14]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Community: trope_bingo, F/F, Gifts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-31
Updated: 2013-10-31
Packaged: 2017-12-31 00:18:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1025093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fengirl88/pseuds/fengirl88
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry Watson gets an unexpected gift from Mycroft Holmes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bearing Gifts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [carolyn_claire](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=carolyn_claire).



> An offshoot from the Trouble With Harry 'verse, which takes place before and after the series.
> 
> This one's for carolyn_claire, with thanks for her help and encouragement.
> 
> Fill for the "unexpected friendship" square on my trope_bingo card.

“Harriet Watson?”

Harry looks up from her untouched orange juice and the Sudoku she’s been failing to do for the last fifteen minutes. 

“Who the hell are you?” she says.

She nearly adds _And what the hell are you doing in a place like this?_ He doesn’t look like one of the café’s regulars, more like a minor character in _Yes, Minister_. Rolled umbrella, three-piece suit, and seriously, is that a _watch-chain_? Harry can’t remember the last time she saw one of those in captivity.

“Mycroft Holmes,” the man says, apparently unfazed by her less than rapturous reception. He pulls out a chair and sits down without waiting for an invitation.

Mycroft Holmes? It has to be Sherlock’s brother, though he doesn’t look much like him. School must have been a bundle of laughs for the two of them with names like that. 

“What do you want?” Harry says warily. 

She could just tell the stuffed shirt to fuck off, but she’s trying to turn over a new leaf, and it’d be just her luck if it all got back to John somehow. Because he _is_ going to come out of that fucking coma, and when he does he’ll be back to disapproving of her as bloody usual. 

“I’ve just come from the hospital,” Mycroft Holmes says. “The medical staff are much more optimistic today about your brother’s prognosis.”

Harry is absolutely not going to cry, because she never does. Apart from that one time with Clara, but she doesn’t count that.

“Good to know,” she says. “Thanks.”

She could have rung up herself, of course, but after the fight she had with Sherlock in Intensive Care yesterday they’d probably refuse to speak to her. Or they’d lie. You can’t trust them. Harry’s had a lot of bad experience with doctors and nurses, and even the ones who don’t work in drying-out clinics are mostly bastards. 

“I gather you have an interest in Dr Sawyer,” Mycroft Holmes says, and she gapes at him.

How the hell does he know about that? Bloody Sherlock, presumably, though she has no idea how _he_ knows she’s interested in Sarah. Harry hasn’t even started on her charm offensive yet; thought she’d better leave it a day or two after the fight at the hospital. She winces at the memory of Sarah dragging her off Sherlock and down to the grotty café on the mezzanine, pouring black coffee down her and then driving her home. She’s got a lot of ground to make up there.

“What’s it to you?” Harry says, once she’s picked her jaw off the floor.

He fishes in his breast pocket and pulls out two tickets to Tuesday’s gala concert at Covent Garden. “I thought you might find these useful,” he says.

Harry gapes again; she knows that sold out months ago. She’d even tried to get tickets for her and Clara, just as well she didn’t manage it.

“I feel – somewhat responsible,” Mycroft Holmes says. “After all, it is Sherlock’s fault that your brother was injured.”

You mean _nearly fucking died_ , Harry thinks, but she’s not about to pick a quarrel with someone who’s just handed her the opportunity she needs with Sarah Sawyer.

“Thanks,” she says, pocketing the tickets.

“Don’t mention it,” Mycroft Holmes says.

She doesn’t mention it, not to Sarah when she goes to the surgery with a huge bunch of flowers two days later to ask her to the concert. She doesn’t even think about it again, through the whirlwind courtship that follows that first outing; she barely even remembers that’s how they got started.

*~*~*

It’s not till she’s signing her second batch of divorce papers in record time that Harry thinks back to that unexpected act of friendship and sees it for what it was. She knows more about Mycroft Holmes now than she used to, and she knows he doesn’t go in for altruistic gestures.

Once she thinks about it, of course, it’s so obvious she could kick herself. He wanted Sarah out of the way so that Sherlock would have a clear field with John. The stupid thing is, they’d probably have got together anyway. But Mycroft wasn’t taking any chances.

For a moment, she’s almost tempted to go round and yell at him, though she’d never get past the front desk. But what’s the point? It’s all over now. Sarah’s happily shacked up with that woman Harry wouldn’t mind betting she’d had a thing for all along, and John and Sherlock have some kind of kinky arrangement going on with that policeman Sherlock works for, which Harry tries not to think about too hard in case her brain starts to bleed. 

And Harry? She’s free, which is just the way she likes it. No thanks to Mycroft Holmes, though; that was one gift horse she should definitely have looked in the mouth.


End file.
